Opening a café...... Advice please!

Passion is an emotion which is essential when writing a business plan but I do get what you mean in this context.

Mr.Boots

I am about a year into running a small rural cafe/restaurant.
It is realy hard work....like realy realy hard work...for very little profit.
We cover our costs, we pay ourselves a small wage, but forget about taking 3 mounths off, thats just madness!!!

If i were you i would follow my dream but i would choose the location carefully, dont just pick that town beacase of the free rent.
Perhaps move away from dublin.....let your partner get a job in his/her field...and you get a small seconhand catering trailer, tour the local farmers markets/ festivals etc giving people great great food and advertising yourself as being available for functions etc.
The trailer is always saleable if it dosnt work out......but if it dose work out maybe you could consider getting a premises.....

A few costs to think about when running a cafe..

Wages
Purchases
Vat
Paye/prsi
insurance
rent
ppi/imro
gas
electricity
water
comercial rates
credit card machine
phone
wine licence
waste

Mr.Boots

Mr.Boots wrote: »

I am about a year into running a small rural cafe/restaurant.
It is realy hard work....like realy realy hard work...for very little profit.
We cover our costs, we pay ourselves a small wage, but forget about taking 3 mounths off, thats just madness!!!

If i were you i would follow my dream but i would choose the location carefully, dont just pick that town beacase of the free rent.
Perhaps move away from dublin.....let your partner get a job in his/her field...and you get a small seconhand catering trailer, tour the local farmers markets/ festivals etc giving people great great food and advertising yourself as being available for functions etc.
The trailer is always saleable if it dosnt work out......but if it dose work out maybe you could consider getting a premises.....

A few costs to think about when running a cafe..

Wages
Purchases
Vat
Paye/prsi
insurance
rent
ppi/imro
gas
electricity
water
comercial rates
credit card machine
phone
wine licence
waste

Have to say, great post. It's about as real as it gets and I hope people pay attention to it. Particularly like the idea of the catering trailer - great way to test the market without breaking the bank, gives an idea of the work and responsibility involved.

Reflector

I think you might struggle but you might get by which it seems that is what you are looking for. I think people always consider business ventures to be raking in the money rather than simply improving quality of life.

It is important though to do projections and cost analysis. Work out how much you would earn and multiply it by 0.8 to get a worse case scenario. Do as detalied a business plan as you can so to cover yourself and know what to expect. this is still an adventure and all business ventures have an amount of risk no matter what. Just prepare as best you can and if I was you I would find a similar place in a similar area and bring the owner out to dinner and ask them exactly how they did it and what difficulties they had.

Also there is a place on Dame street in Dublin called The Queen of Tarts" It is about the size of the place you are talking about so might be worth a look.

madonna123

Cosmocolic wrote: »

Hi all,

Myself and my partner are seriously considering relocating to the country. We are currently living in our house in the Dublin commuter belt with a fairly long commute to and from work each day. We are both wrecked during the week and it seems that we are just living for the weekends and we don't fancy doing that for the next 30 odd years.

My family live in the area that we are thinking of moving to and they own a premises in the village which they have said we can have rent free to start up a business. There is also a small apartment that we can live in rent free. I have always had a huge interest in food and it has been a dream of mine to one day run a successful restaurant. I feel it would be best to start with a café/coffee shop and see how we get on for say 5 years before we think about opening a restaurant I completed the 12 week cookery course in Ballymaloe a few years ago and my friends/family would consider me to be an excellent cook. My partner has some barista experience and would make an excellent front of house person.

My main concerns are that I have no experience working in a commercial kitchen and also that the café would be in a rural village with dependence on tourist trade. The tourist season is April-September just 6 months, the plan would be to possibly only open for 6-9 months. We aren't looking to make a fortune here, just earn enough to live on, get a mortgage and to be able to afford to have a holiday each year. We are well aware that we would need to work our asses off for those 6-9 months but it would be worth it to get 3+ months off. The village is 15 minutes from the main town and consists of a few pubs, a small hotel, tourist shops and a newsagent. There is an existing coffee shop but it is the type that looks and smells like your granny's house if you know what I mean!

An indication of start up costs would be greatly appreciated - The cafe would have capacity for about 25 people so it would be quite small. My family would be willing to help us out serving tables etc initially.

Any suggestions/advice would be most welcome.

hey Iv just been looking at liquidation auction web sites.. loads of nearly new kitchen equipment going very cheap.. I think your very brave. A new cafe just opened 4 months ago in my local village and is going really well. Gets a great lunch time crowd and kept the menu simple and tasty. BEST OF LUCK

murpho999

My only advice would be about your food skills.

You say you have never worked in a kitchen, well how in the name of God do you think you can run a restaurant?

I don't mean to cause offence but having family and friends tell you that your food is good does not mean that its true. They are biased and the real judges will be customers.

There seems to be a notion out there that any body who's succeeded in following a recipe can then go on and cook food that is suitable for public consumption, when this is really not the case, after all, as you have no catering experience you only have to screw up one meal to lose a customer forever who will also give you a bad name.

I really think you should think long and hard about this. Have your food tasted and honestly appraised by strangers, analyse how much money you need to make per week to make a profit, and then work out how many customers a week and what spend per head you would need to do this.

itsonlyme

Mr.Boots wrote: »

I am about a year into running a small rural cafe/restaurant.
It is realy hard work....like realy realy hard work...for very little profit.
We cover our costs, we pay ourselves a small wage, but forget about taking 3 mounths off, thats just madness!!!

If i were you i would follow my dream but i would choose the location carefully, dont just pick that town beacase of the free rent.
Perhaps move away from dublin.....let your partner get a job in his/her field...and you get a small seconhand catering trailer, tour the local farmers markets/ festivals etc giving people great great food and advertising yourself as being available for functions etc.
The trailer is always saleable if it dosnt work out......but if it dose work out maybe you could consider getting a premises.....

A few costs to think about when running a cafe..

Wages
Purchases
Vat
Paye/prsi
insurance
rent
ppi/imro
gas
electricity
water
comercial rates
credit card machine
phone
wine licence
waste

ALSO.......

security,
leasing/bank loan/ bank charges,
depreciation
bookkeeping/accountancy,
stationery,
advertising,
commerical van/fuel/milage/motor expenses,
repairs and maintenance,
packaging,

antoinolachtnai

Maybe one of the other businesses in the village or town would be interested in selling up to you. It might be hard for you to believe, but this might be a better bet than starting from scratch.

Thechef

I have a cafe restaurant. in farm area. The business is affected by the crisis, the lack of construction workers and also that the route is no longer the main road, now is the M4.
Like everything in general. but the coffee shops are not profitable, except in the big city. And I mean Dublin and office areas. from my experience in this country and in others 10 years ago that I'm here. I would say that the cafe in Ireland is a petrol station business and vending machines, but machines semimanual.cony tables and waiters. it increases the cost all. In other countries, where existing cafe culture, the business is more profitable, so the people can work, but here is hard and almost impossible. As has been said here in other posts, the problem is not the rent, may be free, it is still expensive. The problem is the poor sales and everything else that is more than a rental.